Gil Hyatt

Need some advise fella's. Here's the rundown. I have a rebuilt engine with 1400 mi on it. I have been driving for a couple of months on and off now and have had no issues.. around town my temps were 180 and with my new bellypan scoop on the highway never over 195. It was great. But i was driving back from pettit this weekend and the car started running funny. Idling real bad spiking between 500-1500rpm. up and down real bad like it was missing. Also i noticed my temps around town now are at about 195. I have the water in the glovebox sound in the morn and a some white smoke on startup for about 3 mins. I drive the car to work (roughly about 3-4mi) and it doesn't drop below 2Krpm. The car is acting real funny. Is it the thermostat not letting coolant in? I have read the thread about the water sound in the glovebox, but it doesn't make sense that the coolant seals would be going after 1400mi???? Just this morning after i had just started it cold, the coolant warning light and buzzer came on??? It had run for maybe 30 sec. I have a PFC, but i don't think this can affect anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated, guys... Maybe airbubbles in the system.. i dont' know.. anyone with a similar set of sporatic problems??

Gil Hyatt

Ok.. i just went out and checked a couple of things and i found a hole in the the hose that goes from the AST to my filler neck. I believe this might be the problem. This could cause air in the system ?? Anyone agree
Still doesn't explain why the thing is idling so funny.

dubulup

Yes that will cause air to get sucked into the system...Idle???

BinaryRotary

I would get the coolant back up to snuff. Your engine may be running too "free" on too little coolant. Hence, the reason for the too fast idle.

Gil Hyatt

Thanks guys.... I'm going to change that hose and then do a pressure test on the coolant system.. I'll report back when i do.. plus i'm going to change the plugs... they could be fouled, ... i haven't changed them since I got the new engine back . think that might be another reason??

David Beale

White smoke out the exhaust is probably just water vapour due to cooler weather. I replaced all those small hoses with pressure capable ones (there is actually no pressure in that part of the system, but those hoses can collapse under vacuum when the car cools down which stops the system from sucking the coolant back from the overflow tank). If you do this you may have to re-route some of them, as they are much stiffer and so don't bend as sharply.

Yes, the gurgling was probably caused by that hose allowing too much air into the system. You will need to "burp" it once you fix the hoses. BTW, you will never get -all- the air out, but you should be able to see coolant 1-2" down in the filler neck when cold. When you get the car to this state it will not gurgle when running or boil on shutdown.

RX-7 nervana!